


i was shattered, i was saved

by espressohno



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Tags will be updated, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, and many more attempts at not being a civil war apologist, mild homophobia, there will be many attempts at southern gothic fiction, this is a Beautiful Creatures AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-06-30 04:25:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19845532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espressohno/pseuds/espressohno
Summary: a spones au for the book Beautiful Creatures which I was obsessed with back in middle school and realized later on that the dynamic is a perfect fit for these two.Leonard McCoy, who was once something of the town sweetheart, is having trouble adjusting to life after the death of his father a few months before. It feels like everyone is waiting for him to just get over it and return back to "normal", which he's not sure is possible anymore, or if it's even something he wants. Enter Spock Grayson, descendant of the mysterious and agoraphobic Vulcan family, who moves to Walker County during the start of their senior year. His family had left years ago, to escape the almost suffocating pressure of a small town, and after their return Spock doesn't really have it in him to hope that this time will be any different.They're both a little bit broken, and more than a little sad, and that turns out to just be the beginning of what they have in common.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY another years-old WIP i decided to resurrect. posting chapter by chapter this time because, although i usually like to wait to post the completed fic, i'm having a rough summer and really need some encouragement and motivation to keep me going. 
> 
> to people who have started following me for my mckirk and maybe don't ship spones--please bear with me. much like the moon, i operate in phases. i'm sure i'll have more mckirk to post soon
> 
> second disclaimer: i am not from walker county, georgia i just chose this location off of a wikipedia list of civil war battle locations in georgia. if you haven't read the book just know that it's gonna be important to the plot

After what had probably been a full week of sleepless nights--Leonard wasn’t even counting at this point--he had finally, finally managed to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon, after spending the whole day reading and pacing around the house and sweating in the summer heat. He got to the point where he couldn’t seem to focus on another word in those medical journals his dad had bought him last Christmas (the ones which he’d sworn to himself he would read this summer) and then drifted upstairs, stripped down to his underwear, and face planted into bed. 

He could feel sleep coming this time, could feel the wave building and building and finally crashing into him, pulling his tired body under, and the last thought before falling asleep was  _ thank fuck _ . 

Except the universe hated him, apparently. That was the only possible reason why he was being woken up just hours later, before his body was ready, when he was still dead-tired and sweaty all over and twisted in sheets and felt like his mouth was full of cotton. 

“Bones. Get up. You promised you’d come out tonight.”

Leonard forced his eyes open so he could glare at Jim, and he knew it was Jim, because not only was he the only human on this Earth who used that stupid nickname, he was also the only one dumb enough to wake him up in the middle of a nap. 

“Did I make any sort of promises that I wouldn’t strangle you if you woke me up in order to get me to come out,” he croaked, voice rough and gravely as he spoke around the dryness in his mouth. 

“No but you agreed to come out, and considering you have turned down every single invitation to every single party for the entire summer so far, I figured I might need to use unconventional methods to make sure you follow through on your word.”

Jim was using way too many words for this time of day. Okay, it was maybe like, late afternoon in reality, but in Leonard’s nap brain it sure as hell felt like four in the morning. 

“Did your mother use any unconventional methods when she raised you?” Leonard asked, dragging a hand up and down his face to rub the sweat from his forehead and the sleep from his eyes. “Like maybe dropping you on your head as a baby?”

Jim slapped a hand against his shoulder, shaking him just a little, as if Leonard needed any more help waking up and any more reason to want to kill him. And then he was up and navigating the mess of Leonard’s room, looking through his dresser for an outfit. Leonard sat up in bed, feeling like he was in some sweaty, humid, soul-sucking purgatory where the devil had assigned him Jim Kirk for company. 

He couldn’t even remember what it was Jim had invited him to tonight. But he was right, that Leonard had turned down nearly every other invitation to hang out for the whole summer. At the beginning it made sense to pull the whole  _ my dad just died  _ card, but now it had been four months since David McCoy’s death and Leonard was sure that everyone had moved on from fake pity and understanding to seeing it as just another excuse. The leftover traces of pity were probably all that kept people inviting him to things. 

School would start again, soon, though. It was probably a good idea to go out at least once, if only to show that he was still alive and decrease the number of rumors that would be flying around him during their first day back. 

“Okay,” Jim said, once Leonard was dressed in the blue jeans and button-up he’d thrown at him and settled into the passenger’s seat of his car without further protest. “Let me bring you up to date on everything that’s happened in Walker County.”

“I’m sure I’m already up to date and that nothing’s happened.”

“You know what, that’s fair, but actually there’s some good rumors flying around these days.”

“Like what.”

“Like Nyota had sex with that Japanese exchange student after junior prom.”

“I thought she went with him out of pity.”

“That’s what I said!”

Leonard let out a bark of laughter. 

“Well I guess they hit it off. Just face it Jim: she’s never gonna get with you.”

Jim let out an offended-sounding gasp, but Leonard could see how he was biting back a smile at the fact that he’d gotten him to laugh. It was barely even a real laugh, but it was something, and it was definitely the first he’d heard from Leonard in a long ass time. 

“Whatever. You better find it in you to be my wingman tonight because I could really use the help.”

“Do I wanna know where we’re going,” Leonard asked, already dreading the answer.

“Will you hate me less if it’s a surprise?”

-

They ended up at the exact place Leonard was dreading, out in some half-wooded field where the patches of mud on the ground were breeding enough mosquitoes for the whole wide world and the sound of people slapping at their skin mixed together with Gary Mitchell’s car stereo on blast and a dozen obnoxious conversations. This was best known as Walker County’s sad excuse for a Friday night party, for all the kids who were too young to go to the actual bars in town and too old to want to socialize sober. Every weekend someone just picked a different spot in the middle of nowhere for everyone to come drink cheap beer and sit in empty truck beds and shamelessly flirt with the same 50 people they’d grown up with. 

Leonard knew it was trashy, but it was all they had, really. In the summers before this one he’d gone to a lot of these things, even lost his virginity to his ex girlfriend during the aftermath of one of them. 

Tonight, though, he really wasn’t in the mood for any of it. He drank his beer warily, wondering if it would be rude to go take a nap in the backseat of Jim’s car, while Jim stood next to him and talked low into his ear about every single female person in attendance, like he really thought he was being subtle about it. He’d already struck out with most of them, anyway. 

“Can’t you just wait until football season starts and you can meet some out-of-town cheerleader or something?”

Jim snorted, but he looked thoughtful, as he gazed out over the various groups of their peers. Some were sitting in truck beds, flanked by six-packs of beer or bags of mulch or both, a couple girls on the hood of Kyle McKenna’s car, no doubt leaving a dent while they chatted and joked around with each other. A few people had brought those foldable camping chairs, or sat on top of coolers, whatever it took to stay off the ground which was two parts mud and one part sharp, dry grass. Somehow there was no in between. The two of them had just settled on leaning against the trunk of Jim’s car. Leonard unrolled his shirtsleeves and hoped that the mosquitoes were dumb enough to be stumped by that and move on to bite Jim instead. 

“You’re not so bad at this after all.”

“I think you’re just forgettin how well I know you. I’m surprised that wasn’t your plan already.”

Leonard took a sip of his beer, glancing at Jim out of the corner of his eye, but Jim wouldn’t meet his gaze. 

“That was your plan already, wasn’t it.”

Jim rubbed at the back of his neck, biting back something of a smile. He was always a rotten liar, anyway. 

“And now you’ve forced me out here because you knew I was gonna take pity on your sorry ass.”

“Okay, you don’t have to _ insult _ me,” Jim retorted, but he didn’t really sound or look insulted. If anything he just looked a little embarrassed at being found out so quickly. Leonard sighed and dragged a hand down his face, still feeling bone-tired, and tried to give Jim the benefit of the doubt. 

“Did you really think that pulling me out to this place to drink Coors Light and get attacked by mosquitoes was gonna make me feel better.”

“I really did,” Jim said, still staring straight ahead, but his shoulder not-so-accidentally nudged against Leonard’s. “Or at least I figured the blood loss would make you too lightheaded to be mad at me.”

Leonard breathed out a laugh. He saw Jim smiling, distantly, and was hit all of a sudden by this wave of grief, different than the ones he was used to these days. He and Jim were best friends, and Leonard had almost entirely disappeared on him in the last few months. That had to hurt. Maybe not as much as losing your dad, but it still had to hurt. And Jim had known loss too, in his life, long before Leonard did. 

He felt bad and like he was maybe the worst best friend in the world right now and it probably came out in his tone of voice when he said, 

“I’m not mad at you.”

“I know.”

“I mean, not more mad at you than I would have been before--”

“Bones. I know.”

_ Before. _ Leonard was relieved that Jim had cut him off because he didn’t know if he really could have finished that sentence. Instead he finally just dropped it, and Jim cheered up, and when Nyota arrived, fashionably late, carefully treading through the mud to join the girls on the hood of Kyle’s car, Leonard started teasing Jim mercilessly for his crush on her and things were almost back to normal for a few minutes. 

Leonard did feel a little better, by the time they were driving back, headlights cutting through the foggy darkness and windows rolled down to the cool night air. At least the shitty, sad, pathetic mood he was in had been redirected from feeling awful about his dad to feeling awful about Jim. And Jim was still here, he could definitely fix their friendship again, he would no doubt have a hundred more chances to fuck things over with Jim and still fix them. It was comforting, really. 

And anyway, Jim had probably already forgiven him. Jim, who had been through way worse shit than this. His own father dying, his older brother running away, his step-father turning abusive. He and his mom had moved to Walker County halfway through their seventh-grade year just to get away from him, and nobody would have ever guessed that Jim had shown up in their lives for any other reason than to make everybody laugh and rise to the top of the class. 

Jim didn’t even tell him all that until years after he’d moved here, until they had been friends for a while, nearing towards best friend territory. And maybe it was that night, when they were sprawled out on Jim’s bedroom floor eating vanilla Blue Bell straight from the container and pretending to study for a history exam, and Jim told him the truth about why he and his mom had left Iowa, that they finally became something like best friends. 

If Jim could go through all that shit that he had gone through and still come out the other side as a somewhat stable person who had more good days than bad, Leonard probably could too, he decided. 

“Hey,” he said to Jim, maybe a little too loud in the uncharacteristic quiet of Jim’s car tonight. Jim flinched before he flashed Leonard a lopsided grin. 

“Hey.”

“Thanks for picking me up. I know I’m probably not the most fun person to hang out with right now.”

“That’s brave of you to imply that you were ever fun to hang out with.”

Leonard scoffed, turning to look out the window so Jim couldn’t see he was holding back a smile. 

“Am I allowed to be serious for one second without you acting like a dick?”

“Nope. Absolutely not.”

And then he decided, also, during that drive back to his house, that he was going to stop turning down Jim’s invitations to go out from now on. It was the least he could do. 

-

Leonard was impressed with himself, to be honest, for the fact that he managed to wake up without hitting snooze, get dressed, and end up downstairs in the kitchen with enough time to actually eat breakfast. Gaila was already in the kitchen by then, cooking about half a dozen things at once, curly hair tied into a knot behind her head with a ball-point pen. Leonard had grown accustomed to coming down to the kitchen every morning and seeing her there. Growing up, she was first Leonard’s nanny while his parents worked, and then became more of a once-in-a-while maid, but by the end of the summer she’d practically moved in. 

She always lied and smiled and said that it was because she got lonely without someone to look after, but Leonard knew the truth, that without her around to cook and clean, he and his mom would starve half to death and then drown in piles of mail and overfilled garbage bins. 

“Good morning,” he mumbled as he slipped into the kitchen, because he was already in a rotten mood and the school day hadn’t even started, but damn if Gaila hadn’t forced some manners into him years back. 

“Good mornin’, sugar,” she said without turning away from the stove. Leonard could smell eggs and bacon and a few seconds later the toaster popped. He sat down heavily into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “How are you feeling? You get any sleep last night?”

Leonard grunted, reaching for the newspaper to fish out the crossword.

“Just enough that it pained me to hear my alarm.”

“You’ll sleep better once you get into the school routine. I’m sure of it.” Gaila walked over to set down a full plate in front of him; eggs, bacon, toast, and an apple cut into slices even though she hadn’t cut his fruit for him since he was maybe eleven years old. She smoothed a hand across his hair, down to his neck where it was still buzzed short from his back-to-school haircut. “Want some coffee?”

“If you’re offering me drugs I’d much rather have an adderall,” Leonard said, shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth and chasing it with a bite of toast, “or a vicodin.”

Gaila tutted him and then laughed and he smiled up at her, cheeks full of food.

“It’s a good thing you’ve always been this cryptic, honey, otherwise I’d be worried about you.”

She turned back to cooking and Leonard focused on finishing his entire breakfast, even though he had barely been hungry in the first place. The first day of school usually filled him with enough sickly nerves to keep him from eating altogether, but this year was different, obviously. The fact that he was able to finish it all and even accept an extra slice of bacon from Gaila was a testament to that. 

He sat there and tried to wake up his brain enough to work on the crossword while Gaila made a plate for his mom, covered it in tin foil and set it in the microwave, and then cooked up some other things on the stove, dinner, probably, for the next few days. 

After Jim apparently arrived in his driveway for them to carpool to school, Leonard didn’t even have ten seconds to get his backpack after the first time he honked the horn before he was obnoxiously honking it non stop, venturing into some sort of dumbass symphony by the time Leonard was running outside and slamming the screen door shut behind him. 

“Are you not gonna be satisfied until you wake up the whole damn street?” Leonard yelled, and Jim just grinned at him from the driver’s seat. 

“Get in, asshole. I’m not planning on being late to homeroom until at least the third day of school.”

Leonard rolled his eyes and piled into the passenger’s seat. Jim reversed out of the driveway and the car went silent, almost uncomfortably so. 

“You want some Pepsi?” Jim asked, probably just to say something, and pulled a 32 ounce soda from the cup holder to offer it to him. Leonard grabbed it before he thought it through. 

“No I don’t want some--damn it, Jim, is this all you’ve had for breakfast?”

“Of course not. I got hash browns from the drive thru, too.”

Leonard sighed, looked out the window, and reluctantly took a sip. 

“One day your metabolism is gonna catch up with you,” he said, “and I’m gonna laugh at you.”

“That’s the spirit, Bones.”

Jim held out one hand expectantly, the other on the steering wheel while he turned into the school parking lot. Leonard passed him his sugar water. 

“This year’s gonna be great. I can feel it,” Jim said as he put the car in park, and Leonard didn’t really have it in him to offer a sarcastic comeback. He probably should have let Gaila make him some coffee this morning, he realized. 

-

Sitting in homeroom made Leonard wish he was back in the kitchen even more, smelling Gaila’s cooking and trying to find a ten letter word for “glowing, sparkling” for the crossword in the paper. He tried his best to look unapproachable, to stare a hole into the center of his desk and hunch his shoulders and otherwise communicate that he  _ did not want to talk _ , but it didn’t seem to work. Partly because he’d spent the last few years cultivating a reputation of being a good person to talk to, partly because everyone knew his dad died a few months ago and were attempting to outdo each other with their patronizing remixes of  _ if you ever need anything let me know _ , and partly because Jim was sitting right next to him and waving them all over as they filed in. 

The only person he didn’t mind coming up to his desk, gently standing in front of it until he finally looked up at her, was Christine. 

“Hey, Len.”

“Hi, Chris,” Leonard said, and tried his best to smile, because he really did mean it. Thankfully he managed to get the message across, and she smiled back and walked around his desk to pull him into a hug. 

It was loose, and friendly, not like the way she held him a few months before. After his dad died, after he stopped coming out, and before he finally told her that he couldn’t handle it anymore--being her boyfriend, on top of everything else. At first she’d been really hurt by it. She thought it meant he didn’t want her around while he grieved. But once she understood that it was because he couldn’t be good for  _ her _ anymore, couldn’t be the kind of boyfriend she deserved, they were able to stay friends, kind of. She had promised to give him the summer, to be alone, and to try to get better, but now with school starting, with no conversations happening about getting back together, Leonard caught the sadness in her eyes as they separated. 

“I’m here for you, you know,” she said quietly, settling her hand over Leonard’s where it gripped tightly to the end of the desk. He hadn’t even realized he was doing it until he felt her palm against the back of his hand, her fingers curling softly around his own. “Really here for you, not like all these people who are saying it just to say it. I don’t care about being your girlfriend again.”

But Leonard knew she did, knew she must still hold a place for him in her heart, knew she was waiting for him to come back to her. It made something like self-disgust take up space in his chest, wrapping around the numbness that had been there all morning. 

“I know.” He forced another smile, and he was sure Christine could see, this time, that it was forced. Her face fell just a little bit, in the way only Leonard would notice, but she still squeezed his hand before she left to sit next to Nyota a few rows away. 

He was only subjected to a few more sickening, overly-sympathetic conversations, a few more sets of exaggerated sad-eyes, before the last few students filed in, followed by their homeroom teacher. Silence filled the room as the door was pulled shut, and Leonard didn’t know if it was because of their teacher showing up, or because of who had walked in right before. 

The student in question--the only new student, as far as Leonard was aware--definitely would have earned the hush of silence on looks alone. He was pale and tall and glided across the room to his seat as if he had known, before he came in, that this would be the last empty desk in the room. Leonard knew he was out of town right away, from the smart way he was dressed, his shiny black hair that was so straight it hung over his forehead, his eyebrows that arched up in such a way as if he was analyzing the whole world around him at every second. Leonard had never seen him before. Or someone like him. He definitely would have remembered it. 

He sat down a few seats away from Leonard, a couple rows behind him, and caught Leonard looking back over his shoulder. They locked eyes for just a moment, which made Leonard’s blood run a little cold, and confirmed that this guy was definitely the source of the sudden quiet in the room. He couldn’t have been staring into his eyes, big and brown and so dark they were nearly black, at the completely unreadable expression on his face, for more than three seconds, but that was apparently all it took for him to realize it. A ten letter word for  _ glowing, sparkling _ . Effervescent. That was it, wasn’t it. 

Leonard shot his head back around and decided to pretend like whatever just happened didn’t happen. 

It turned out to be easy. The numbness settled back into his chest, and under his skull and all the way to his hands until his fingers went cold, by the time the teacher started calling roll. He was just barely cognizant enough to grit out  _ here _ at his own name, and he hated the sheer number of heads that turned at the sound of his voice, as if they hadn’t expected him to show up, as if they hadn’t already stared at him when they walked in fifteen minutes ago. And just as he was about to dissociate out of the room completely, he heard it. 

“Vulcan,” their teacher called out, and then squinted at the roll call list, “Jeez, didn’t think I’d be seeing one of those in my roster this year.”

“My last name should be Grayson, in the system,” a voice piped up, a voice which belonged to someone who was definitely not from Walker County, Georgia, who apparently had  _ that _ last name, the last name everyone and their grandma knew in this town. Leonard didn’t have to turn around again to know who it was.

“There was an error with my enrollment. But I should be Spock Grayson.”

Their teacher took an almost unprofessional amount of time to wipe the surprised look off his face. He straightened up a little. 

“Alright, I’ll write that down. But you’re here, Spock Vulca--I mean--Grayson.”

“Yes.”

Instead of silence, this time the room was swept up into a dozen different hushed conversations. Leonard was honestly glad that everyone’s attention had moved onto a new subject, from the sad sack with a dead father to the mystical, teenage Vulcan kid who nobody even knew existed. 

The Vulcans lived so far at the edge of the town that they were practically in another one, despite the fact that they owned almost all of Walker County. As far as Leonard and everyone else knew there was only a childless couple living in that old mansion, two equally-pale, equally-mysterious people who could occasionally be spotted in the back pews during church service, or shopping for groceries, or walking through the fields around Walker County at odd hours. There was a long-inactive Facebook group someone had made when Leonard was in middle school, called Vulcan Sightings, which ended up getting the high schoolers responsible thrown in Saturday detention for cyberbullying, even though Leonard was sure that neither of the Vulcans in Walker County had actually seen it. He didn’t even know if they were the type of people who owned computers. 

He really didn’t know anything about them, only rumors, like they were devil worshippers, or aliens, or serial killers, or vampires. All of those rumors which had stopped being interesting or funny a few years ago and which were probably going to come back, now, in full force, all aimed in Spock’s direction. 

He stopped feeling glad, then, that Spock had drawn everyone’s attention away from him. He sat slouched in his chair for the rest of homeroom, while whispers and notes were passed around in favor of paying attention to the long list of first-day announcements, and he tried to think of what he could do for this guy who was about to have a worse day than him. Maybe even a worse week, if he didn’t do  _ something _ . 

-

Even though on the inside Leonard felt overwhelmingly numb and a little bit like he wasn’t even remotely himself anymore, he knew he still had a good deal of social pull. Before this had all happened, before the summer he’d just spent isolating himself in his room, he had been pretty popular at school. He might have gone as far as to call himself the most popular guy there, except that would have interfered with the down-to-Earth charm that made him so popular to begin with. And he knew that the right thing to do was at least try to help Spock Grayson before he completely and totally started down the path of  _ social outcast _ . 

He thought about it during lunch, while his table chatted away (and Jim ate unapologetically off of his tray). Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of Spock’s jet-black hair, it was unmissable, the way it seemed to absorb rather than reflect light. He watched as Spock stepped into the cafeteria, took a quick look around, and decisively slipped back out into the hallway. 

Leonard knew he could have followed him out, called after him, and maybe somehow cajoled him into sitting down at his table of athletes and student council officers and social butterflies. As much as it would have made him look good to do that, he knew that even if Spock did agree to sit with him, it only would have ended in him feeling lonely surrounded by all those people, which was really worse than feeling lonely alone. 

Whatever; he’d figure out a good way to reach out to the new kid without alienating him and without seeming like he was putting on a show. He just needed some time to think. 

And then he was walking home after school and he saw Spock again. He looked more or less exactly how Leonard felt: numb, trapped, tired. So, so tired. 

So Leonard did something impulsive. 

“Hey, Spock, wait up!” He called, and Spock whipped his head around in such vivid confusion that someone was calling his name, as if he would have never even imagined this situation occurring. 

Spock caught eyes with Leonard, but he definitely did not  _ wait up _ . 

Leonard jogged to catch up with him. 

“Hey, Spock.” 

“Hi Leonard.”

“Hey, you know my name.”

Leonard had assumed he was still just as good at socializing as he always used to be, but something about talking to people all day and then talking to Spock and talking at all when the only thing Leonard wanted to do was lie down seemed to be blocking whatever part of his brain used to take control when he would make friends in the past. 

“And you know mine,” Spock said, and then kept walking. 

“Wait wait wait wait wait--” Leonard caught up with him again. Spock really did not seem interested in talking to him. He was pretty sure this was the first time someone hadn’t been interested in talking to him, even though he was getting tired of everyone’s performative, look-how-sympathetic-I-am interest. He knew this would be a good time to just call it a day and let things be, but at this point he’d already made a stupid-ass impression and he needed to prove to himself that he could make up for it. 

“Yes?”

“Just that...you can talk to me, you know, if you ever want to.”

“How generous of you.” 

Leonard was awestruck by the fact that Spock had somehow communicated all of the emotions of an eye roll without once rolling his eyes. 

“Listen, that’s not what I meant, I just meant that….” 

Things were already a trainwreck. 

“I mean, starting at a new school is hard.”

“I don’t need you to do me any social favors.” Spock still would not  _ stop _ walking. If anything, it looked like he was speeding up on purpose.

“I’m not trying to do you a social favor or anything, okay, I’m just trying to be friendly.”

“Interesting how you waited until we were nowhere near any of your actual friends before you decided to be friendly with me.”

Leonard sighed and Spock glanced at him from the corner of his eye, still walking, gripping the strap of his messenger bag like Leonard was here to mug him. 

“I mean I would’ve come up to you earlier today but I didn’t want you to feel watched.”

“So you followed me down this street. So that I wouldn’t feel watched.”

“Oh my god, why can’t you just let me--”

“Let you what.” Spock halted suddenly, turning to Leonard, “I told you before that I don’t need your charity.”

“This isn’t charity! It’s just that I know how you must feel around here and...”

“I’m sure you do, Leonard.” 

There was a lot that went unspoken there, but most clearly there was the part where Leonard was essentially the town sweetheart, who everyone wanted their sons to be friends with and their daughters to marry, who was greeted by name almost everywhere he went, and then there was Spock, whose family had been nearly shunned out of existence. The idea that the two of them could feel the same way at all was absurd and Leonard knew it and it wasn’t even what he was trying to  _ say _ in the  _ first _ place, and--

Leonard was trapped and he needed to get out. He could feel at the same time something pulling at his chest and something else pushing against his ribs. It was maybe a scream, or a rush of tears, but what came out instead was just four, flat words, 

“My dad is dead.”

And then, as if there was some sort of spiritual connection between Leonard’s heart and the sky--and hell, maybe there was, the way those dark gray clouds had been hanging in the air all day like Leonard’s misery while he walked from class to class--the storm clouds broke open with one single clap of thunder, and promptly poured down on them both. 

If anything, Leonard was grateful, because if something hadn’t happened, if something hadn’t broken the few, stale seconds of silence between him and Spock, he was absolutely sure he would have burst into tears. 

As it was they were getting soaked down to their bones as the raindrops pounded against them. Leonard held his backpack up over his head to try to see something through the sheets of water coming down. He could make out Spock, once the water was out of his eyes, and realized that Spock was staring right back at him. It was like neither of them knew what to do, now. Like whatever conversation they’d been having--or attempting to have--sucked so bad that heaven itself had felt the need to intervene, and now they were stuck together on the sidewalk and the rain was so loud they didn’t even have the option of starting over. 

Leonard closed the distance between him and Spock, squinting at him from under his backpack. Spock looked like he had lost most of his hostility in the surprise of the rainstorm. 

“Were you gonna walk?” Leonard asked--shouted, more like.

“I...yes,” Spock answered. Water streamed down his face, sticking his hair to his forehead and getting in his eyes. Leonard wished his backpack was big enough to cover them both, but it wasn’t, even with how close they had to stand to hear each other. 

“My house is a block away, let me drive you home.”

Leonard was expecting at least a little bit of a protest, even just a symbolic one, before Spock accepted his offer to drive him home, but instead he just nodded once and followed him through the rain. 

What he really wanted to do was take a break in the house for a second, once they got there, to dry off and change clothes and maybe eat something before driving through the storm, but it was miracle enough that Spock had just agreed not only to get in Leonard’s car, but to tell him where he lived. Going inside the house, even for towels to cover the seats, was dreaming a little too big. 

Instead they ducked into the old station wagon, wet clothes squeaking against the leather seats. Leonard shut the door and he was finally out of the rain, and he could hear himself think, and for a minute he just had to sit there before he even put the key in the ignition. He looked over to Spock, who had pushed his wet hair out of his forehead and was now attempting to peel his sweater off within the confines of the front seat. He finally got it off to reveal his equally soaked button up underneath, and it had made his hair stick out in all directions, and he almost looked violated when he realized Leonard was watching him. 

“Are you going to drive,” he asked. Leonard couldn’t help the smile on his face, could only contain it as best he could so it was just a little bit of a smirk. 

“It would be my pleasure, Spock Grayson.”

Other than giving directions, and insulting the interior of Leonard’s car once, and criticizing his driving habits three times, Spock was silent through the whole ride. Leonard knew better than to try to make small talk at this point. 

Halfway down the long, tree-lined road that led to Spock’s house, the rain finally let up, and in typical fashion of a summer storm in Georgia, the sun broke through the clouds as soon as it did. Leonard rolled the windows down so he could smell that sharp, humid scent of all that water soaking into the hot road. Spock didn’t say anything, but out of the corner of his eye Leonard saw him in the passenger’s seat, arms crossed, head leaned out just a little bit to feel the air from the open window, strands of half-dry hair blowing about in the wind. 

Spock made him park at the gate at the bottom of the driveway and Leonard could only make out above the stone walls and the vines and the twisting wire gate, a rooftop big enough for a whole mansion. He realized he had never actually seen the Vulcan mansion, before, only heard stories about it. It certainly didn’t look so creepy like everyone said, but maybe that was just because it was still light outside.

“Hey,” Leonard said, while Spock still hadn’t closed the door yet after he’d slid out of the seat. “If I see you tomorrow I’m gonna talk to you, you know. So you better be ready for it.”

Spock gave him a flat look, adjusting the strap of his messenger bag over one shoulder. 

“Am I allowed to ask you not to?”

“Nope. But you’re allowed to thank me for the ride home.”

Spock exhaled so short it was practically a huff. He shut the car door and bent just a little so he could say through the still-open window, 

“Thank you for the ride, Leonard.”

-

One day of school did nothing to help Leonard’s sleep improve, but at least now while he was up half the night he had something productive to do. He finished more than a month of the required reading for English class before finally nodding off on the couch in his dad’s old study, surrounded by the books he never got to finish, a rolodex with way more people in it than ever came to the hospital or the funeral, framed photos and degrees on the wall that Leonard didn’t think he ever looked at until after he was gone. He woke up feeling ten times worse than the day before, but school went about the same. Maybe even a little better, with most people leaving him alone. He only had to make it through a few sarcastic conversations with Jim, which actually kept him going, one restrained and difficult and almost awkward conversation with Christine, and no less than thirty seconds of eye contact with Spock, and still Leonard came home feeling emotionally and physically exhausted. 

He greeted Gaila as he passed her on the stairs, and would have stopped to let her interrogate him on how school was going except the vacuum was running and she barely heard him say hello anyways. He was just seconds from jumping into bed, standing in the doorway of his room, when he saw that the door to his parents’ room was cracked open, too. Well, his mom’s room, now. 

She had been working longer hours, by choice, ever since his dad died. Gaila had said that that was just the way she needed to grieve, but it still made Leonard worry every time she willingly picked up someone’s shift at the bank, stayed extra hours, or volunteered to help out at other branches out of town. Leonard could see that she was spreading herself too thin on purpose. But he could understand why she might try to avoid being cooped up in their little house, with Leonard pacing through the rooms like her husband used to, and Gaila trying to make enough noise for the three of them. 

It looked like she might be home now, though, at a normal time. Leonard set his backpack down at his bedroom door and kicked his shoes off before walking over, gently knocking as he cracked her door open a little wider. 

“Mama? You home already?”

“Yeah, go ahead and come in, sweetheart.”

Leonard did, and--something that would have been so weird six months ago but now seemed absolutely normal to the two of them--he went over and sat on the bed next to her, slipping underneath the covers, too. Before his dad died he probably hadn’t crawled into his parents’ bed since he was little, when he would climb into bed next to his mom after a bad dream in the middle of the night. Now it just made more sense, to get into bed with her, than to try and convince her to come out. 

The room was dark and warm and a little bit stuffy, stripes of evening light coming in through the blinds and painting the bedspread. Leonard leaned back to open up the window and let some air in, gave his mom a minute to wake up. She pushed herself up to a seat, leaning against the headboard, and found Leonard’s hand with her own. 

“How was your first day at school?” she asked, and Leonard looked down at his lap. At their clasped hands. At her wedding ring. 

“Today was my second day. But it went okay. Not good, not bad.”

“Same as last year I bet.”

Leonard didn’t know if it was just the fact of being in here, with her, where it was so clear that neither of them were coping all that well, the two of them isolating themselves in messy rooms and staying in bed on instinct, but he felt a lump forming in his throat. 

“Nothings the same, Mama,” he said, voice scratchy and raw already. 

“I know, baby,” she sighed, and brought her hand up to his forehead instead, brushing the hair out of his face. “But it might do you good to try to pretend some things are the same as they used to be.”

“I tried. I’ve been trying this whole time.”

Leonard had to look away, even though it was too dim to really see the details of his mother’s face, to see the sadness in it, it was enough that he could feel it in the space between them. The lump in his throat was threatening to come out if he said another word, so he didn’t, and focused on breathing and watching those lines of orange across the foot of the bed. 

She pulled him, gently, to lie down, resting his head against her lap. This was another thing Leonard had probably assumed he grew out of years before, but now he just held on tight to the blankets covering his mother’s lap, felt her hand carding through his hair, and tried to let the first tear that rolled out onto his cheek be the last. They didn’t talk anymore after that, they just stayed there, until even the few bits of sunlight coming through the blinds started to dim. Until the smell of Gaila cooking dinner made its way upstairs. Another meal she was cooking for them which they didn’t ask for, which was probably past her job description, but the number of meals which fit that description was too high to count, now. 

At the very least, they both made it down to the table for dinner. That couldn’t be said for those first few weeks after his dad had passed. 

He tried to go to bed early that night, and tossed and turned for hours, before falling into a series of dreams, like TV episodes, of homeroom after homeroom, where everyone openly stared at him as they walked in, or whispered to each other behind their hands, until he felt so angry and embarrassed he wanted to scream. In the last one he looked down at his desk, at his hands, which were weirdly pale, at the button-up and cardigan which he didn’t own, ran a hand through his hair which was too straight and too neat to be his, and then he woke up in a cold sweat and couldn’t figure out what the hell his brain had been trying to tell him with that one. 

So he got out of bed at four in the morning and put his sneakers on and ran through the fields behind his neighborhood until he all but collapsed into the damp grass, feeling so exhausted that he’d forgotten the anger and confusion from those half a dozen dreams. 


	2. Chapter 2

Walker County wasn’t known for much. They had three whole Civil War battle monuments within county lines for them to brag about, which was more than a little overdone at this point and, in Leonard’s opinion, not something to brag about at all whatsoever. They were situated on the edge of a national forest, that was something. Not that Leonard ever really took advantage of it. And there were almost as many churches as there were residents. That was something else. 

The only good thing about there being so many churches was that you could theoretically get away with skipping church altogether, if you were careful enough with telling people which one you were attending. But Leonard’s excuses were starting to get a little mixed up, and Jim’s mom was more than a little worried about his soul and the fact that he might be going straight to hell for not attending an hour-long sermon once a week, where some guy in a plaid shirt who had presumably never sinned once in his god-fearing life told him how to be a good person. So Leonard went back to church for the first time in months, since his father’s funeral, because Jim showed up at his house on Sunday morning and said he wasn’t allowed to show up without him. 

Jim smiled sheepishly at him through the screen door, dressed in a button-up shirt and his nice jeans. Leonard was still in his pajamas, and had been fully intent on spending half the day in bed since it was Gaila’s day off and she wouldn’t be around to tell him he was acting like a sad person for spending half the day in bed. 

“I mean, she says she gets why your mom isn’t coming, because she’s grieving your dad and stuff--”

“And I’m not?”

“Don’t get snappy with me, don’t you think I made that argument?”

Jim sighed, probably because he had just snapped at Leonard in the process of telling him not to be snappy.

“She’s worried about you. And she’s in the car. And you’ll really save me a lecture if you just get dressed and come with us.”

Leonard thought about it for a minute, took in Jim’s expression which was about half-desperate and half-apologetic, hands stuffed into his pockets. Finally he pushed open the screen door and saw Jim’s eyes brighten. 

“Just don’t loiter on my porch while I’m getting dressed.”

“Deal. I owe you.”

“Add it to your tab,” Leonard called over his shoulder as he trudged upstairs to look presentable. 

Ten minutes later, with a shirt that was only somewhat wrinkled and his hair styled (also for the first time since his father’s funeral) Leonard was following Jim like a shadow back out of the house. Jim’s mom, Winona, who really was a nice woman, even when that niceness was a little misplaced, was in the driver’s seat and gestured for them to hurry up and get in the car. Leonard only had to survive about fifteen minutes of strained small talk with her, where they tiptoed around almost everything that was actually going on in Leonard’s life, and then since they were late to church he only had to survive 50 minutes of the sermon. 

They slipped through the big church doors and into one of the pews in the back that still had space, and when Leonard looked to his left and saw that flash of black hair, absolutely unmissable in the crowd of Georgian blondes and brunettes. It took a few more attempts to catch eyes with Spock before Spock finally glanced in his direction at the right time, eyes widening a bit in recognition. Leonard smiled and tilted his chin up a little in greeting, because waving would have been too obvious and would have made Jim interrogate him afterwards about why he was waving at Spock Grayson in the middle of church. 

Spock nodded back carefully, and didn’t meet Leonard’s gaze again throughout the rest of the service. 

-

“Are you doing okay?” Jim asked later, after they’d gone back to his house for lunch (another non-negotiable request from Winona). They were sitting in a pair of faded, plastic chairs on the back porch, drinking too-sweet lemonade and only sweating a little bit in the September afternoon. 

“Yeah,” Leonard replied, looking out at the backyard fence like it was suddenly really interesting. 

“I feel like you’re lying to me.”

He stared at the fence for a few seconds longer, before turning back to where he knew Jim was sitting across from him, leaning back in his chair and attempting to look casual about it. His guess was right. Jim took a sip of his lemonade while he waited for Leonard to answer and he definitely didn’t just  _ feel _ like Leonard was lying, he knew it. 

Leonard shrugged, and found himself gesturing his hands in some vague and exasperated way which did nothing to ease Jim’s suspicion. If anything it made it worse. Jim raised his eyebrows at him and finally Leonard sighed, 

“Of course I’m lyin to you Jim. Of course I’m not fuckin okay. Is that what you wanna hear? One church service didn’t fix me all of a sudden.”

“Well that’s not what I meant, and you know that, but sure. You’re right. Two weeks of school and one church service wasn’t going to  _ fix you _ anyway. Not that anyone around here was expecting that.”

“Feels like they all think I’m supposed to be better by now.”

“Well, I don’t think that, at least. And Christine doesn’t.”

Leonard dropped his head into his hands. 

“I don’t wanna talk about Christine.”

“Alright, alright, we won’t.” Jim’s voice was thankfully devoid of that pity everyone else seemed to have after a couple lines of conversation with Leonard. If anything, he was kind of annoyed. And Leonard actually appreciated it, because he was probably being annoying, and Jim deserved to be annoyed with him sometimes, even though his dad was dead. Being called annoying would sound a thousand times better to Leonard’s ears than that fake sympathy, sickly-sweet and harder to swallow than Winona’s lemonade. 

“You can talk about this stuff though, you know. I don’t care if I don’t understand it. You’re allowed to talk about it.”

“I know,” Leonard grumbled into his hands. 

It was something Jim had said a million times by now, and again and again in the days after his dad had died. About how Leonard could talk to him even though he didn’t really get it, even though he was too young when he lost his own father to know what it felt like, even though he had trouble with the idea of mourning the loss of a father figure rather than celebrating it. Leonard didn’t blame him for repeating himself, even now, because the first few weeks after it had happened his mind had just mixed everyone’s words up all up into noise. 

“Look, I’m sorry, I just--”

“Okay. Don’t apologize. It’s getting annoying.”

Leonard lifted his head up from his hands and Jim was smiling at him a little bit, arms crossed over his chest. For once, he really had no trouble returning it. 

“Just stop overthinking it, Bones. Things’ll get better.”

“Whatever.” But Leonard believed him. And more than that, he realized how lucky he was to have Jim here to give him the only encouragement he seemed to believe. And to tell him when he was being annoying. 

“I’ve got the new Mortal Kombat. If you wanna stay for a few more hours and procrastinate with me.”

“Every version of that game is the same as the last.”

“I’m taking that as a yes.”

  
  
  


-

Leonard didn’t know what it was about that silent hello he gave Spock in church on Sunday, but apparently it was enough for Spock to want to start talking to him. Like actually. Well, not in the way that most of Leonard’s friends talked to him, but in Spock’s own way. In AP Bio, which was the only class where they were sat close to each other on the seating chart--Leonard having been assigned to the desk right behind Spock--he started to hear Spock muttering things under his breath, sometimes answers to the teacher’s questions, sometimes witty comebacks to something stupid another student said, sometimes (god forbid) a joke. 

It wasn’t until the first time Leonard choked back a laugh, when Kevin Riley raised his hand to ask if there were still people on Earth with Neanderthal genes in their DNA and Spock mumbled  _ your mother, probably _ , that he realized Spock had been saying those things because he  _ knew _ Leonard would hear him. Spock turned his head just slightly, enough to glance back over his shoulder at Leonard, looking almost pleased with himself. He was practically _ smiling _ . And he turned back to face the board just a second later but Leonard felt like he had missed at least five minutes of the lesson while he sat there processing the fact that Spock might have just smiled at him. 

Spock started saying hello to him, too, when they passed each other in the hallways, or in the morning when they came into homeroom, but only when there wasn’t really anyone around to witness it. Leonard didn’t know if it was because Spock didn’t want to embarrass Leonard, or what, but it kind of ticked him off. So he tried not to overthink it. 

And after that first day of school Spock must have started taking a new route home, or staying late somewhere, because Leonard never ran into him on the sidewalk like that again. That was another thing he tried not to overthink: the fact that he found himself wanting to drive Spock home, like he had that one time. It was such a weird thing to want. They had hardly even been friendly to each other during that little drive through the rain. 

Still, most days he scanned the parking lot and the road as he made his way home, just in case Spock might be around this time. Maybe it was just his never-ending compulsion to try to help people, that made him look for Spock sometimes. That had to be it. 

And that had to be the reason why he almost felt excited when he was driving past the high school one afternoon and spotted him. He had been on his way to Jim’s house to  _ work on homework _ , which probably meant play Xbox and listen to Jim whine about how the majorette he met at their football game against Dalton had broken his heart already.

(Jim hadn’t explicitly told him that this is what happened, but he hadn’t mentioned her in a few days and kept texting Leonard links to Lumineers songs and Leonard could put two and two together on that one.) 

He almost wanted to slam the brakes when he saw Spock walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, cardigan hanging over his messenger bag and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up in preparation for what had to be a pretty long walk back to his family’s house. 

Well, that had to be enough of an excuse to bother him. And if he was late to his study session, Jim could get over it. 

Leonard pulled a U-turn in the middle of the empty street and slowed down when he got to where Spock was still walking--gliding, practically, his legs were so long, and he didn’t seem stressed or hurried at all. Leonard figured he was about to change that fact, except when he rolled his window down and brought the car to a stop, Spock stopped too, like he wasn’t surprised or even  _ bothered _ . 

For a second they just looked at one another. Leonard really didn’t think he’d get this far. He was half expecting to have to chase Spock down the street like last time. 

“Hi Leonard,” he said instead. 

“Don’t you have a car?” Leonard asked. “Seems like a long walk.”

“I don’t drive.”

“Well,” he tried to keep his voice casual, and wondered why he even felt nervous to begin with. This was Spock, after all, who already had such a bad reputation in town before he even arrived, it really didn’t matter what he thought about Leonard. “Are you gonna get bitchy if I try to give you a ride again?”

Spock blinked at him for a moment, and then looked as though he were assessing the situation. He glanced at the road ahead of him (long) and down at his messenger bag (probably heavy) and back at Leonard’s car (unfortunately more of a mess than it had been a few weeks ago) and then, as if he was scared someone was watching them, he carefully walked around the front and slid into the passenger’s seat. 

Leonard felt himself grinning over at him. He hadn’t even needed to plead his case today. 

“If you’re going to look at me like that, I’d prefer to walk home,” Spock deadpanned, even though he was buckling his seatbelt while he said it, and Leonard just turned his attention back to the road and put the car in drive again. 

“So why don’t you drive?”

“It wasn’t necessary, where I was living before.”

“And where’s that?”

“Connecticut.”

“No wonder you don’t have an accent. You got family up there?”

“Are you writing a book about me?”

Leonard snorted, and glanced to the side to confirm that  _ yep, this must just be Spock’s sense of humor. _ He was watching the road closely, but there was just the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

“You know, Spock, this may come as a shock to you, but I’m actually just interested in getting to know you.”

“You’re right, that _ is  _ shocking.”

“And this is what people do when they want to get to know each other. They talk.”

“What makes you think I want to get to know you?”

“Well you got in my car, didn’t you?”

Spock was silent for a moment, and Leonard tried his best to hide the satisfaction of having won. 

“My mother’s family lives in Connecticut,” he finally said, “Her parents, my aunt and uncle, and my adopted sister who is in college now.”

“Now we’re gettin somewhere.”

“Would you like their names and addresses, too?” Spock asked, and Leonard was starting to recognize that tone of voice that always carried one of his jokes with it. But two could play at that game, so he just nodded. 

“Yeah, and their phone numbers, if you’ve got em.”

-

Spock still insisted on getting out of the car in front of the gate, but at least he didn’t seem to be in such a hurry this time. And there was a lot less malice in his expression and his voice when he said goodbye.  _ And _ , when he said goodbye, he said, 

“See you tomorrow, Leonard.”

Leonard was in a weirdly good mood when he finally made it to Jim’s house, later than they’d planned, but right on time for dinner. Winona seemed convinced that she (and the Lord) had had something to do with it, and Leonard didn’t know it at the time, but he’d just locked himself into an indefinite agreement to go to church with the Kirks every Sunday from that day forward. 

-

“I heard he got kicked out.”

“Where was he going to school before?” Janice asked. Kyle just shrugged. He clearly  _ “heard he got kicked out” _ from absolutely nowhere. 

They had all pushed their desks together into a little cluster, because their substitute teacher had announced a study hall instead of attempting to teach their US History lesson for that day, and promptly sat down at the desk and switched off his hearing aid. 

It had been maybe five minutes since that happened and everyone reorganized into their respective cliques, and Leonard was already wishing that they could all just have an actual study hall, because apparently all anyone wanted to talk about--gossip about, more like--was Spock Grayson. 

“I don’t know,” Kyle said airily, and clearly he was pulling this rumor straight out of his ass, “But I heard he got kicked out.”

“It was a private school, wasn’t it? One of those fancy New England ones,” Jim added, and looked over to Leonard as if for confirmation. Leonard just shrugged and shoved his nose back into his calculus textbook, because he really wanted no part in this conversation whatsoever.

“That would explain why he dresses better than all the other guys here,” Nyota said from where she was sitting on the edge of Jim’s desk. Jim let out an offended gasp and was probably dramatically clutching his hand to his chest.

“Hey!” 

“She’s right. Had to be private school,” Janice said, “Otherwise where else would he have learned to dress so nice.”

“Gay,” Kyle said thoughtfully, and Gary let out a bark of laughter, followed by giggling from Janice and Nyota and  _ god _ \--even Jim. 

“He’s gotta be gay. Oh my god. I’ll bet my life on it,” Gary laughed, almost out of breath. He and Kyle were the only ones still laughing, even though it wasn’t even funny. None of what they had said so far about Spock was either funny  _ or _ interesting. 

“No wonder he’s so weird! I mean, do you see the way he walks?”

Now that didn’t even make sense. 

Also, there was nothing weird about the way Spock walked. 

Before it could get any worse--or before Spock somehow appeared within earshot of them, if he hadn’t been already--Leonard lifted his head up from his book. Everyone seemed to notice that he was suddenly paying attention, maybe because he used to always be a part of these conversations, not just a quiet presence in the group. If it was a year ago, maybe he would have been one of the people laughing over the idea of Spock being gay. But he wasn’t. And it wasn’t even funny. He narrowed his eyes at Kyle. 

“Are you so boring that you have to make shit up about people you don’t even know?”

“Awww, Leo, do you have a crush on him?”

Leonard rolled his eyes and decided to just go back to glaring daggers into his textbook again. 

“If yall took your heads out of your asses long enough to talk to him, you’d realize that he’s completely normal.”

“He’s right,” Nyota piped up, “I mean, we shouldn’t be talking like this about someone we don’t really know.”

And just like that, the conversation picked up speed in a completely different direction, thanks to Jim sacrificing himself for the cause and talking about the majorette from Dalton who broke his heart. The rest of the class turned into everyone alternating between laughing at Jim and giving him advice, and after a while Leonard finally cooled off enough to stop pretending to study and joined in. He felt uneasy for the whole day, though, after that, with the worry that Spock might have overheard them. He could have been standing in the doorway of the classroom, like he did sometimes when he was scoping out the library or the cafeteria, heard everyone laughing about him, and slipped back out without a word. 

If that had happened, if he had seen Leonard sitting next to the same people who were making fun of him behind his back, he probably would never speak to Leonard again. That was an equally worrying thought. His friendship with Spock, which was precarious to begin with, could’ve been ruined in  _ one second _ because of something Leonard hadn’t even said. 

Except Leonard passed Spock in the hallway during that next passing period, and his first reaction was panic, until Spock caught eyes with him and nodded, just like they had to each other that one morning at church. And then all Leonard could feel was guilt and relief all mixed into one. He nodded back and smiled and watched as Spock flicked his eyes away. 

-

Oddly enough, the part that stuck with Leonard the most from that conversation (which was the last of its kind, at least in Leonard’s presence, he made sure of that) was the suggestion that Leonard was coming to Spock’s defense because he had a  _ crush _ on him. 

Except he couldn’t really figure out why that stuck with him. And the thought was kind of distracting. It wasn’t like the idea of being gay weirded him out, or the idea of Spock being gay, either. He wasn’t the kind of person who thought that was gross, or some sort of punchline. People were gay. Big deal. 

Still, it was apparently distracting enough that Leonard was letting Jim beat his ass at Mortal Kombat to an uncommon and maybe even unheard of degree. They were camped out in Jim’s room, on the floor, leaned against his bed and playing Xbox on the tv, a mostly-demolished box of blueberry Pop-tarts between them. So, their usual Sunday routine. Even though Leonard was unusually distracted and losing a lot. 

“I don’t want it to sound like I’m complaining, but what’s up with you today?”

“Nothin,” Leonard drawled, trying to take advantage of Jim’s shitty multitasking skills and get a win under his belt while he was still busy playing therapist. 

“I thought we agreed you weren’t gonna bullshit me anymore.”

“You get that in writing?”

“Ha ha. I’m just saying you seem--ohhhh fuck. Fuck you.”

Leonard smiled over at Jim, who was angrily button-smashing trying to get them to a rematch already. 

“That was completely unfair.”

“Wasn’t my fault you took your head out of the game.”

“Seriously though,” Jim said, and punctuated it by nearly killing him in one attack. Leonard was already falling behind again, jesus christ. “Like Tuesday during history. That was kind of unlike you.”

Leonard grunted. 

“I mean yeah, we were being kinda mean, but everyone talks like that. You used to.”

“Maybe I don’t want it to be  _ like me _ to talk shit about someone behind their back,” Leonard gritted out, and promptly lost the round, which only made him that much more pissed off. “Especially Spock. He has a hard enough time as it is in this town, with who he’s related to.”

“Fair point,” Jim said. But it didn’t really help. 

Leonard tossed his controller on the floor in front of him and rubbed his eyes. The sun had almost set and neither of them had gotten up to turn the lights on yet, instead choosing to stay on the floor staring at the tv screen as it got brighter and brighter. Maybe what Leonard really needed was to go home and sleep. 

“You’re trying really hard to be his friend, aren’t you.”

“Yeah.”

Leonard blinked a little when he opened his eyes again, readjusting to the dim, ever-changing light coming from the game’s menu screen. He tried to sit up a little bit from the shitty posture he’d been in for over an hour, spread his legs out across the carpet, rolled his head from side to side. He  _ did _ need to sleep. 

“Why?” Jim asked, and Leonard looked over at him. He’d let go of his controller too, and sat with his knees folded up against his chest, methodically breaking little pieces off of the last Pop-tart. Leonard just watched his ridiculous, insane, sugar-addicted best friend for a minute, while Jim ate mindlessly and they both listened to the Mortal Kombat title theme play on a loop. He already had a best friend, damn it. Why  _ was _ he trying to hard with Spock. The truth was, 

“I don’t know.”

Jim shrugged, apparently satisfied with that answer, and felt around on the bed behind him for the remote so he could change the input on the tv. 

Maybe an hour later, halfway through one of those Bourne movies which both of them had seen and neither of them were really paying attention to, Jim brought it up again. But not in the way Leonard would have ever expected. 

“Listen, it really was shitty the way we were making fun of Spock and calling him gay.”

“Yeah, Jim, I get it.”

“No, I mean it. Even if Spock is gay, that wouldn’t be a fucking  _ joke _ . There would be nothing wrong with that. And it was shitty of me to even laugh but I wasn’t thinking, I was just laughing because everyone else was.”

Leonard glanced at Jim out of the corner of his eye. He looked uncharacteristically serious, even considering how often he seemed to be pushing Leonard to have serious conversations these days. 

“Well I’m not gonna go and tweet about it to the whole world that you did that, if that’s what you’re so worried about.”

Jim sighed. He tried again, slower this time, gesturing vaguely and ineffectively with the hand that wasn’t holding the tv remote. 

“Bones. If Spock is gay, it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter….if you like him. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

“Oh.”

And that was how Leonard found out he had a crush on Spock. 

Jim pushed him lightly on the shoulder, forcing him out of whatever state of shock he must have fallen into when he realized  _ that was why he was trying to damn hard to be Spock’s friend _ . Leonard just blinked and tried (and failed) to pay attention to the movie again. 

“You should ask him on a date,” Jim said, and Leonard must have been in shock, still, he had to be, because his response to that was just, 

“Yeah.”

-

Leonard was just going to show up at the gate to Spock’s house--his mansion, more like, or maybe the best word would actually be  _ estate _ \--and just text him to come out, except the gate turned out to be open when he pushed on it, so he went ahead and walked up the rest of the driveway and rang the doorbell. It took more than a few minutes for someone to answer, maybe because the house was so big or maybe because someone who was not Spock looked through the peephole and saw a strange teenage boy standing on the veranda and went to track down Spock to make  _ him _ answer the door. 

Finally the front door cracked open and there was Spock, dressed down in joggers and a loose sweater with one collarbone distractingly out for the whole world to see. Leonard finally stopped staring at Spock’s decolletage and looked up to his face, and he looked like he felt as awkward as Leonard did, which was strange considering this was  _ his _ house. 

“Why are you at my house,” he asked by way of greeting. 

“That how you greet people who come to your door?” Leonard smiled, and he could see Spock bristle a little bit like maybe he was trying not to give him the satisfaction of his reaction. 

“Hello Leonard. Why are you at my house.”

Leonard froze for a second, because he realized that this was the point where he had to explain why he’d shown up on Spock’s doorstep in the middle of the afternoon, which meant this was the point where he had to ask Spock out on a date like he had decided he would. 

The longer they both stood there, though, the worse it got, so finally Leonard just forced it out, 

“Do you wanna see a movie with me?”

Spock blinked at him. 

“Now?”

“No, not  _ now _ \--I mean we could go now, but I meant like--on Saturday, or something. Saturday night. Do you wanna see a movie.”

Spock looked at him like that was the last thing he would have expected Leonard to possibly say to him, and the shock on his face was a little bit adorable, and then it was quickly replaced by his typical flat expression as soon as Leonard started grinning at him. Maybe he hadn’t completely forgotten how to use his charm, after all. 

Too bad it didn’t really work on Spock like it worked on everyone else. 

“If I say yes, will you leave my house.”

“Sure.”

“Then I’ll go with you. As long as you leave my house.”

Leonard couldn’t have wiped the grin off his face if he’d tried. 

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

And Spock moved to close the door again, before stopping himself just to confirm, 

“Saturday night?”

“Saturday night. Whichever movie you want. Within reason. Our theater has like, four movies playing at any given time. So it’s gotta be one of those.”

“Alright,” Spock said, “Please leave my house, now.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Leonard exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air and already making his way down the porch steps while Spock shut the door. He pumped one fist in the air, triumphantly, as he walked down the driveway towards his car, before he realized that someone might have seen him do that through the peephole. But it didn’t matter to him one bit, because Leonard had a date. 


	3. Chapter 3

The list of places Jim Kirk was now dragging Leonard to only got longer and longer as the semester went on. But Leonard had stopped saying no to things, and Jim was bound to pick up on that after a while, so he should’ve known it was coming. 

And in the back of his mind he knew Jim only did it to help. And in the far, far back of his mind he knew it  _ was  _ helping, in a way. Even when it landed him in places like a Friday night  _ ice cream social _ with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Leonard knew exactly why Jim had picked this place to go to, instead of literally anywhere else in Walker County on a Friday night. People only went to FCA events because hearing the acronym their parents happy, even though everyone over the age of fifteen usually spent the whole time discussing, acquiring--or doing--drugs, sex, and alcohol. It was no surprise, either, that after just ten minutes spent standing around in a very wholesomely-decorated multipurpose room of the First Baptist Church, Jim disappeared. 

So Leonard was on his own, a little overwhelmed already by all the freshmen and brightly-colored streamers everywhere, but he had the distinct feeling that, all things considered, he definitely could have been in a  _ worse _ mood about it. Which must have meant he was getting better. 

“No ice cream, Len? Did you just come here for the atmosphere?”

Leonard turned around to see Christine standing next to him, smiling, and holding a styrofoam bowl of vanilla ice cream with that magic-shell fudge sauce on top. It was her favorite, because it reminded her of those chocolate-dipped ice cream cones from Dairy Queen. There wasn’t any sadness in her eyes when she looked at him, this time, only happiness and maybe a little bit of relief that she found someone she knew at this ridiculous, hormone-fueled church event. 

Christine wasn’t dressed up, like more than half of the underclassmen were, but that didn’t matter. Even with her hair pulled up into a bun and the same sweater and jeans she’d worn to school that day, she was easily the best-looking girl in the room, as far as Leonard was concerned. He felt another little pang of guilt, for the way things had ended--or not ended, technically--with this girl who really had never done anything wrong, to him or to anyone else, but he couldn’t dwell on it because she immediately grabbed his arm and said, 

“Come on, there’s probably enough left for you.”

So he let himself be dragged to the buffet line of bulk-size ice cream tubs and a thoroughly devastated collection of little bowls of toppings. He diligently held her bowl for her while she designed a sundae for him with whatever was left. 

“Nearly had to fight that kid over there for the last of the peanuts,” she said when she finally returned, and Leonard snorted. 

“He’d never have seen it coming. You’ve got a lot of pent-up anger underneath it all.”

“Don’t I know it,” she winked, and they traded bowls. 

She remembered his favorite, too, vanilla and caramel sauce and peanuts. They managed to find some empty seats, ones that weren’t right smack in the middle of all of the needless drama that seemed to happen whenever fourteen-year-olds were involved. Somewhere at the far end of the room where it wasn’t so obvious they were hanging out alone, but it was still quiet enough for them to talk. 

And they actually did talk. Maybe it was Leonard’s mood today, which was considerably less sad and numb than usual, or the neutral location of the FCA ice cream social, but it probably just came down to the incredible kindness and charm and the wicked sense of humor that Christine had that Leonard somehow forgot about. At some point he laughed so hard he felt the spoonful of ice cream he’d just eaten threaten to come back up through his nostrils and ended up bent over and wheezing. The whole scene had only made the two of them laugh harder. 

“How’d you end up here alone, anyway?” Christine asked, once Leonard’s breathing started to sound somewhat normal again.

“Jim brought me here and promptly abandoned me as soon as he heard someone say the words ‘smoke’ and ‘weed’ in the same sentence.”

“Ah.” She stabbed a piece of magic shell with her spoon and scooped up the pieces. “You could’ve gone with him.”

“Wasn’t in the mood. Decided I’d rather be around a bunch of sober children than a bunch of high children.”

Christine laughed. She leaned over the table, propping her chin up on her hand, and looked out at said sober children, stuffing their faces and orbiting around the room in little groups and flirting and fighting and laughing with each other. 

“How did  _ you _ end up here?”

“I’m here on big sister duty. Supposed to make sure Madison doesn’t talk to boys.”

“How’s it lookin?”

She squinted towards the crowd, supposedly looking for her little sister among them. 

“Beats me. I haven’t seen her in a while so she must be out having pre-marital sex somewhere.”

“You’re such a good sister,” Leonard said, and she smiled and looked back at him, and for a second it was like nothing had changed, like they’d gone back to one of the countless times they’d had conversations like this before, like maybe they could have come here together on purpose. But that feeling was the same as the guilt that came earlier. It was gone as soon as it was there. For Leonard at least. 

Christine reached over and took Leonard’s hand in her own, the one that wasn’t still holding a plastic spoon, but it meant more, this time. It meant more than just  _ I’m here for you _ . 

Leonard let out a slow exhale, almost a sigh, and looked down at the table. 

“Chris,” he started, at a total loss for where to go next. 

“I knew you would start with that,” she cut in, and her hand went loose around Leonard’s. “I was just hoping it would be in a different tone of voice.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I guess I can’t kiss you, then, can I,” she said. Her tone of voice didn’t make Leonard feel so guilty, again, but it sure made him feel sad. He caught eyes with her, because she at least deserved that much, and the look on his face must have been answer enough. 

But she didn’t look sad, this time, either. It had to have been so long coming by now that she couldn’t muster up sadness anymore. 

“I don’t like peanuts, anyway,” was all she said before giving his hand one more squeeze, and letting go. Leonard felt like a weight had been lifted off of him, just then. He wondered if this conversation would have been so easy the whole time he was avoiding it. 

“It’s nothing you did, you know. I promise it wasn’t you.”

“I know.” Christine resumed her position of watching the sea of teenagers around them. “Feelings change, sometimes. I don’t wanna say I expected it, but...” she trailed off. Leonard always used to whine whenever she got all psycho-babble on him, whenever he was just trying to complain about something and she had to school him on  _ why _ he felt everything he felt. She’d flown through AP Psychology that year. 

“But what? Go ahead and analyze me.”

She smiled a little bit. 

“Grief usually does one of two things. It pushes people apart or it brings them together. I knew I didn’t have very good odds.”

Leonard realized she hadn’t really offered any psycho-babble whatsoever back when his dad had passed. She’d hardly left his side, but she didn’t react the same way Jim had, by filling any and all silence with rambling and apologies. She’d simply given him time, as much time as she could, sat with him in silence, held him in silence, drove him around on evenings when he couldn’t bear to stay in a house that all of a sudden felt too empty. He’d missed the chance to hear her pick apart his behavior with theories from all of the psychology papers she’d memorized. And he’d missed the chance to complain about it, too. He hadn’t thought about the fact that, even though she wasn’t saying anything about what he was going through, she was definitely still thinking about it, theorizing about it, probably staying up half the night in the process. 

And she was right, too. At least about the fact that Leonard’s grief had definitely done the former, and pushed them apart. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”

“No, I mean, I’m not saying ‘I’m sorry’ like it’s my fault, I’m saying I’m sorry that you had to let me go when you didn’t want to. I’m not stupid enough to think I’m the only damn person in the world who’s sad right now.”

She looked like she was thinking about it, chin propped up on her hand like that famous sculpture. A strand of hair fell loose from her bun and into her face and she tucked it back behind her ear. Leonard had missed her, he realized that too. Even if he didn’t want to be her boyfriend again. He had missed her, whether she was in his arms or not. 

“Just say you’ll be my friend again, at least. Because I want us to be friends,” she finally said, leaning her cheek against her hand so she could look over at him. 

“Do you mean that or are you just saying it because girls always say that?”

“Have I ever said something to you that I don’t mean?”

Leonard thought for a second.

“Not that I can remember.”

“Well, I’m still a girl, and I’m telling you I want to be your friend, and I mean it. I want you around in whatever way, shape, or form, Len.”

Leonard felt his face heat up but he nodded, and then all he felt for the rest of the night was that sense of relief. They were good as friends. They had been good as a couple, too, they made sense as a couple. Two of the most popular kids in school, with similar interests, a similar sense of humor. They went to the same church and they volunteered together for NHS and they organized the school blood drive together. It just made sense that they started dating, to the both of them and to the whole town. But first and foremost they had been good friends.

When Jim finally materialized again, decidedly  _ not _ stoned enough to avoid overreacting about the ice cream being gone, but stoned enough that Leonard had to drive him home, they said goodbye. Of course their words implied that they’d be seeing each other again soon, on Monday no doubt, but Christine gave him the kind of hug that felt like a much deeper goodbye. 

“You be good,” she whispered, before pulling away to go back into the church. 

Jim was luckily also stoned enough not to be analyzing that hug too much. Just enough that he said, 

“I’m glad you guys made up,”

before he, more loudly, said, 

“Now take me to Dairy Queen or I will riot.”

  
  


-

Even though he’d been expecting it this time, and clearly answered the door dressed and ready to go, Spock was still really awkward about Leonard being on his doorstep. 

“I’m not gonna force myself inside if you open the door more than three inches,” Leonard said flatly. “I came here to steal you away, remember.”

Spock narrowed his eyes at him, but opened up the door enough to step out anyway. Leonard was intrigued both by the sweater and button-up combo that somehow looked fancier than his usual sweater and button-up combo, and also by the sight of Spock hastily shutting the door behind him. 

“Am I gonna come inside one of these days and find that yall keep a bunch of golden retrievers in there, or something?”

He wasn’t sure if it was because Spock didn’t get the joke, or if it was Spock’s version of continuing the joke, but he just said, 

“We have one cat.”

And then they walked together down the porch steps and through the front yard out to the gate. It was starting to seem like nobody even lived in this big house, except for Spock, and apparently his one cat. The front yard was wild and unkempt-- _ overgrown _ would have been putting it lightly. Vines crawled up the sides of the house and the big columns that lined the porch and the fence that wrapped around the property. Whatever wasn’t covered in vines and moss and thick patches of weeds was shaded by trees, willows, especially. The first time Leonard had opened the gate and seen this yard he’d been so focused on talking to Spock that he didn’t notice that the rumors about this place rang a little bit true. It definitely looked like ghosts lived here. 

He wanted to ask if they had a gardener, too, but it seemed like that was too close to the edge of asking about Spock’s family, which Leonard could tell was going to be a touchy subject no matter how he approached it. Definitely not a first date topic. 

So he let today’s piece of the puzzle--the  _ who the hell is Spock Grayson _ puzzle--start and end with the information that Spock Grayson has a cat. 

Leonard thought about opening the door for Spock, because he had done that on all of his other dates, but he decided against it. This wasn’t explicitly a  _ date _ , after all. He hadn’t used the word date when he asked Spock to the movies so, for all he knew, Spock didn’t think it was a date. And Leonard didn’t know if he was capable of steering the night in that direction. Spock wasn’t exactly encouraging it. If anything, he sat in the car and looked kind of like he did on the first day of school, like he didn’t really want to be there, even though Leonard knew that he had come out on his own free will. 

At least he didn’t insult Leonard’s driving, this time. But he did change the radio station at least a dozen times during the drive, which started to get annoying. 

He warmed up, though. He almost looked like he was glad to be out while they were standing in line to get popcorn, and he not only willingly allowed Leonard to buy him candy, but he even told him (unprompted) that his favorite candy was Junior Mints. 

The movie Spock picked was bad. It was really bad. The theater was so crowded on a Saturday night, which was to be expected, and Leonard could tell that Spock had probably picked it because he didn’t want to risk running into any of their classmates. So they sat in an almost-empty theater watching a ridiculously cheap horror-movie sequel that had been playing for weeks already. It was bad, but bad enough that it started to get funny. Leonard learned two more things.

First, that Spock actually did laugh, sometimes. Things that made him laugh included: overly-dramatic stabbing actions with unrealistic blood splatters, dialogue that was so poorly written that it couldn’t even stand up in a porno, and Leonard leaning over to whisper that the dialogue was so poorly written it couldn’t stand up in a porno. 

Second, Spock talked during movies. Or maybe it was just this one, because it was so awful, but Leonard was surprised by it anyway. All things considered, though, it made sense. The same way he muttered under his breath in Biology class, he whispered snarky responses whenever a character asked an obvious question, or pointedly did not notice the intruder creeping around in the house behind them. Just like in Biology class, Leonard found all of it hilarious. 

Okay, maybe he learned three things, the third thing being that he might really, really have a crush on Spock, after all. 

-

Spock loosened up, too, by the end, probably from the stupid-as-hell movie they’d just sat through. He was definitely in a better mood when they got in the car afterwards than he’d been in when Leonard had shown up at his doorstep. Or he  _ had _ been in a good mood, for a minute there.

“Turn that off,” Spock said as soon as the car started and the radio came to life. Leonard almost didn’t hear him complain for a second because he was so caught up in the fact that the  _ best song in the goddamned world _ was playing--and from the beginning, too. He was just  _ that _ lucky tonight. 

“What?” he demanded, and looked over his shoulder at Spock who was apparently absolutely serious. 

“Or turn it down, whatever it is.”

Leonard just stared at him in disbelief, mouth hanging open a little. 

“ _ Whatever it is _ \--listen, I’m gonna give you a pass since you’re a northern boy, but this is not just  _ any  _ song. This is T _ he Devil Went Down to Georgia _ .”

“Is knowing the song title supposed to change my mind somehow? I still would like you to turn it down.”

“No.”

Spock blinked at him. He didn’t look like he was ready to back down anytime soon. 

“Just give it a chance, Spock, this song is amazing, even if you don’t like country music. Just listen to the lyrics for one minute and you’ll get it.”

They continued their little staring contest, sitting there in the movie theater parking lot, while the song played out a little longer. Of course Spock had missed the setup of the entire story with his complaining so it wasn’t even possible for him to  _ really _ understand how good the song was, but he still offered Leonard about thirty seconds of silence where he was presumably listening. 

“I don’t get it.”

“You weren’t even listening!” Leonard cried, but he was just seconds away from laughter, too. Even when Spock was being insufferably stubborn, Leonard still couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be right now than in this car arguing with him. 

“It’s about a mountain on fire?” Spock offered, and okay, that was almost adorable. 

“Okay, no, let me just explain this song to you,” Leonard said, and turned the radio down just slightly. He barely suppressed the overwhelming urge to grin as Spock’s eyes widened in recognition that the coming monologue was bound to be even worse than if he had just shut up and listened to a 3 minute song. 

“So the whole premise is that the Devil isn’t getting enough souls coming down to hell--maybe people are being too good, or whatever, I don’t even know--so he decides he’s gonna go find some souls one by one, starting with Georgia.”

“Why Georgia?”

“Beats me. He just rolled the dice I guess. Threw a dart at a map and it landed on the state of Georgia.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Hush, we’ve only covered like the first line of the song.”

Spock stared out at the parking lot in front of them in disbelief and slouched against the passenger’s seat. This time Leonard definitely smiled wickedly at him before he continued, 

“So he goes down to Georgia and finds this kid playing fiddle, and the kid’s really good, and apparently the Devil is secretly a master at the fiddle himself so he figures he’d go toe to toe with this kid to try and get his soul. Now I don’t even  _ know _ what the limitations are for how the Devil is able to go about stealing souls but apparently he can’t just take them without staging some sort of duel, and the implications of that are just hilarious. Like, do you think the Devil just has all these skills so he can battle it out with different humans? Or does he exclusively go for fiddle players whenever he needs to steal a soul by hand? Does he even  _ need _ to duel people for their souls or is he just  _ that _ bored?? I don’t even know. That’s how deep this song goes.”

“I don’t know if deep is the word I would use.”

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that. So anyway the Devil says ‘let’s have a fiddle-off’ and ‘if I win I’m takin you back to hell with me’ and ‘if you win you can have my golden fiddle’. But little does he know he got himself into a competition with what may as well be the best fiddle player in the south, because the kid--Johnny--absolutely crushes it and beats the Devil’s big red ass.”

“Fascinating. Please drive me home now.”

“I ain’t done yet. You heard the ‘fire on the mountain’ lyric, which a lot of people don’t actually get, but every time the story says Johnny is playing there are these lines like that one which don’t make sense with the rest of the lyrics. But actually they’re references to traditional country music songs. So what the song is actually trying to show is that Johnny is so well-versed in country music traditions that it makes him a better fiddle player than even the Devil himself. And then he calls the Devil a son of a bitch. That’s the whole story.”

“Thrilling from start to finish,” Spock deadpanned. 

“You bet it is.”

“You realize that, in the time it took for you to explain to me why you believe this song is good, the song has already played out and I missed the opportunity to appreciate it?”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” Leonard said, and plugged his phone into the AUX cord. 

-

“I was mistaken,” Spock said later, after the second time they’d listened to  _ The Devil Went Down to Georgia _ in a row during the drive to his house. Leonard whooped. 

“I knew you’d come around.”

“I was  _ mistaken _ ,” Spock clarified, “when I agreed to go on this date with you.”

Halfway through letting out an exaggerated groan and unplugging his phone from the AUX to let the stereo switch back to the radio station, Leonard realized what had actually just been said. 

“Did you just call this a date?”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Spock freeze up, and start to stare out at the road with more intensity than usual, like he was trying his hardest not to meet Leonard’s eyes by accident. Leonard glanced over at him, saw the color rising in his cheeks even in the almost-darkness.

“I mean, it’s fine if it’s not actually a date. But if it is, you should know that you’re permitted to torture me with the same song three times in a row, too. It would only be fair.”

Leonard was glad he’d said that, because it turned out to be just the thing to help Spock relax again, almost immediately. But he did regret it a little bit when he ended up having to listen to  _ Bring Me To Life _ by Evanescence three times in a fucking row. 

Spock actually did look pretty relaxed in the car next to him for most of the drive, though, except for those few seconds after the word  _ date _ had slipped out of his mouth. Even while he was sitting there bored out of his mind listening to Leonard’s hyperfixation with a single country song from the 1970s, he looked way more comfortable than he had when he’d first gotten into the car before the movie. And maybe it was just optimistic of Leonard to think so, but it seemed like he’d been having fun bitching at him over his music taste the whole time, anyway. 

He couldn’t even bring himself to ask if Spock actually, literally listened to Evanescence or if it was some sick joke, because Spock was all but smiling in the passenger’s seat, watching as they wound through the country roads that led to his house. It was so dark at that point that they could only see a couple yards in front of them, only the bottom half of the trees by the roadside. Spock played something else once he was done with his revenge music, something a little bit indie and a little bit folksy and they didn’t talk for the rest of the drive. 

When they made it to Spock’s house, Leonard put the car in park in front of the closed gate, like he knew Spock was about to ask him to, and folded his hands together in his lap. He looked at Spock, who finally looked back after what felt like forever. Even though the old, flickering light in his car cast a yellow glow between them which was as good as darkness, his face, his eyes, the harsh line of his eyebrows and his nose and the gentle curve of his mouth, Leonard could still see it all. He swallowed hard. 

“Thank you...” Spock said slowly, “...for the ride home.”

Leonard breathed out a laugh. He felt like his hands were vibrating, like there was something he was supposed to do, something he was supposed to touch, and he tried to push that feeling away and dismiss it and assume he must’ve been holding the steering wheel too tight. He and Spock didn’t touch each other. They hadn’t the whole night. They hadn’t maybe…..ever. 

He didn’t realize how distracted he was, completely lost in his own thoughts about whether or not he had ever touched Spock before, staring into his eyes a little too long, when all of a sudden reality came back to hit him all at once. Because Spock kissed him. 

It was only a second. Two seconds, maybe. Or maybe even three, of Spock’s mouth, softer than Leonard would have thought, pressed against his own, quickly and innocently but just firm enough that Leonard remembered the feeling, the shape of his mouth, for the rest of the night. 

When Spock pulled back again his eyes were a little bit wide, like maybe he hadn’t been expecting himself to do that, either, and then his expression went blank again. He nodded once and reached back to open the car door. 

“Goodnight, Leonard.”

Leonard felt like it took him three tries just to find his voice again, but he managed to grit out a breathless-sounding  _ goodnight _ before Spock had gotten all the way out of the car. He sat there, basically in shock, and watched Spock walk up to the gate, glancing back once before it closed behind him. It hadn’t been his first kiss, at all, and he didn’t know what it was about the way Spock had just kissed him, but he didn’t feel like he could move his foot to hit the gas or move his hand to change gears and he just had to sit there for a little while longer, even after Spock was gone. 

Maybe it was the way he’d been looking at him before it happened, or just the way Spock always looked at him. Or the fact that Spock was the one who ended up calling it a date, ever-so-subtly admitting that he might have feelings for Leonard, too. The way he said  _ thank you for the ride, _ just like he did that first afternoon when Leonard drove him home, like he’d remembered everything about that afternoon, too. Leonard didn’t know. All he knew for certain was that no first date with a girl, and no first kiss with a girl, had ever made him feel like  _ this _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CAST YOUR VOTES NOW: does spock listen to evanescence ironically, or un-ironically???
> 
> (also i'm sorry i got carried away with the devil went down to georgia discourse. bones, however, is not sorry at all)


End file.
